The latest update on the Public Test Realm (PTR) of the action game Overwatch includes major changes in the abilities of the character Mercy. The support character has been given a great offensive tool that can potentially alter the balance of the game.
Previously a relatively harmless support character, Mercy's ultimate skill has been replaced with Valkyrie, which boosts her healing and support abilities for 20 seconds and gives her the ability to fly. It also grants her weapon unlimited ammunition and increases its damage and rate of fire during the duration.
Based on initial tests by players in the PTR, Valkyrie's boost of Mercy's offensive capabilities and her ability to fly is a lethal combination that turns her from being a backline support to a very potent offensive option.
Furthermore, when Mercy's ultimate is coupled with Ana's Nano Boost, she gains a crazy amount of firepower that is more than enough to wipe the entire opposing team.
Mercy is already one of the top played characters in the game due to her previous ultimate, Resurrect, which allowed her to revive her entire team in one go. The update Resurrect has been relegated to a regular ability and was limited for use on one teammate at a time, before going on cooldown.
In the game's developer update video, game director Jeff Kaplan discussed how Mercy's mass resurrect encouraged a behavior in Mercy players wherein they hide at a safe place, and when their teammates are defeated in the fight, they swoop in to resurrect all of them, and turn the tide of battle. They wanted to remove this kind of behavior, so they decided to reduce the impact of Resurrect.
As Resurrect was such a big impact ability, the developers felt that they needed to come up with something special to replace it as Mercy's ultimate ability.
Principal Designer Geoff Goodman acknowledged players' opinion about Mercy's overpowered ultimate in the Overwatch forum. "Her gun while using Valkyrie is a bit too strong at the moment," said Goodman. "The idea is for it to have some extra juice to be able to use it in more niche situations. Right now, it is strong enough that it is feeling like the primary way to use the ultimate, which isn't intended"
"There is likely to be a good amount of tuning happening throughout this PTR cycle to iron this kind of stuff out," he added.
